Weekly Roundup: Major Updates to PaaS

Over the last week the cloud world seemed to be showered with heaps of new offerings and releases from the cloud providers. There had been a few announcements and new feature release from Microsoft, Amazon, Cloudera and StackMob. Also, there was some good news for developers from Google, CloudFoundry and Hortonworks. Plus, HP Cloud showcased its new cloud migration service to the enterprises.

Here’s a quick summary of cloud happenings over the last week.

Beginning with the IaaS leader, Amazon has introduced a new High Memory Cluster Eight Extra Large instance for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Which is designed for memory-intensive applications, like in-memory analytics, databases, caching, and scientific computing. One of the new IaaS players, HP Cloud has showcased its Application Workload Migration services. They have presented a live demo on how quickly the Enterprise Applications can be migrated from a traditional data centre to the HP Public Cloud. Also, they have proved the efficiency by migrating a multi-tier web application from a dedicated server to the public cloud in just 12 minutes.

One of the major PaaS players, Windows Azure, has announced the general availability (GA) release of Windows Azure Media Services, which provides extremely scalable, end-to-end media solutions for streaming on-demand video to consumers on any device. There was another release of its new capability Notification Hubs that provides a highly scalable, cross-platform, push notification infrastructure that enables the developer to efficiently route push notification messages to millions of mobile users and devices. In addition, Azure introduced a new functionality SQL Server Native Backup functionality, which simplifies the backup and restore capability of an on-premises SQL Server database to Windows Azure. Furthermore, its final announcement of the week was about offering lots of new add-ons and data services at Windows Azure Store.

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

Google has released code samples and tools for cloud services such as App Engine and BigQuery on the online repository GitHub. This is the first time that Google has moved away from code.google.com to github.com. Cloud Foundry has provided guidance on deploying and managing real-time applications on Cloud Foundry using common Node.js examples and Redis key-value store capabilities.

Some of the backend providers have also made some new releases. StackMob has released iOS SDK v.1.2.0 that enhances the performance of the SDK as well as a new interface for working with Core Data. This release also includes a caching system for fetching without needing to make network calls. ActiveState has announced about their support for Java 7. The latest Stackato release (2.6.7) includes Java 7 in its list of core runtimes, easily selectable at deploy time.

Cloudera, the Big Data platform provider has released the Cloudera Impala Beta (version 0.4) and Cloudera Manager 4.1.3 with some key enhancements. Hortonworks, another Big Data player has announced the availability of the Hortonworks Sandbox, easy-to-use, flexible and comprehensive learning environment that provides a rapid on-ramp to learn and explore enterprise Apache Hadoop.

Janakiram MSV heads the Cloud Infrastructure Services at Aditi Technologies. He was the founder and CTO of Get Cloud Ready Consulting, a niche Cloud Migration and Cloud Operations firm that recently got acquired by Aditi Technologies. In his current role, he leads a highly talented engineering team that focuses on migrating and managing applications deployed on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Windows Azure Infrastructure Services.
Janakiram is an industry analyst with deep understanding of Cloud services. Through his speaking, writing and analysis, he helps businesses take advantage of the emerging technologies. He leverages his experience of engaging with the industry in developing informative and practical research, analysis and authoritative content to inform, influence and guide decision makers. He analyzes market trends, new products / features, announcements, industry happenings and the impact of executive transitions.
Janakiram is one of the first few Microsoft Certified Professionals on Windows Azure in India. Demystifying The Cloud, an eBook authored by Janakiram is downloaded more than 100,000 times within the first few months. He is the Chief Editor of a popular portal on Cloud called www.CloudStory.in that covers the latest trends in Cloud Computing. Janakiram is an analyst with the GigaOM Pro analyst network where he analyzes the Cloud Services landscape. He is a guest faculty at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) where he teaches Big Data and Cloud Computing to students enrolled for the Masters course. As a passionate speaker, he has chaired the Cloud Computing track at premier events in India.
He has been the keynote speaker at many premier conferences, and his seminars are attended by thousands of architects, developers and IT professionals. His sessions are rated among the best in every conference he participates.
Janakiram has worked at the world-class product companies including Microsoft Corporation, Amazon Web Services and Alcatel-Lucent. Joining as the first employee of Amazon Web Services in India, he was the AWS Technology Evangelist. Prior to that, Janakiram spent 10 years at Microsoft Corporation where he was involved in selling, marketing and evangelizing the Microsoft Application Platform and Tools.

You know you need the cloud, but you’re hesitant to simply dump everything at Amazon since you know that not all workloads are suitable for cloud. You know that you want the kind of ease of use and scalability that you get with public cloud, but your applications are architected in a way that makes the public cloud a non-starter. You’re looking at private cloud solutions based on hyperconverged infrastructure, but you’re concerned with the limits inherent in those technologies.

SYS-CON Events announced today that Grape Up will exhibit at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct. 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Grape Up is a software company specializing in cloud native application development and professional services related to Cloud Foundry PaaS. With five expert teams that operate in various sectors of the market across the U.S. and Europe, Grape Up works with a variety of customers from emergi...

SYS-CON Events announced today that Massive Networks will exhibit at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Massive Networks mission is simple. To help your business operate seamlessly with fast, reliable, and secure internet and network solutions. Improve your customer's experience with outstanding connections to your cloud.

SYS-CON Events announced today that SkyScale will exhibit at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. SkyScale is a world-class provider of cloud-based, ultra-fast multi-GPU hardware platforms for lease to customers desiring the fastest performance available as a service anywhere in the world. SkyScale builds, configures, and manages dedicated systems strategically located in maximum-security...

Detecting internal user threats in the Big Data eco-system is challenging and cumbersome. Many organizations monitor internal usage of the Big Data eco-system using a set of alerts. This is not a scalable process given the increase in the number of alerts with the accelerating growth in data volume and user base. Organizations are increasingly leveraging machine learning to monitor only those data elements that are sensitive and critical, autonomously establish monitoring policies, and to detect...

Everything run by electricity will eventually be connected to the Internet. Get ahead of the Internet of Things revolution and join Akvelon expert and IoT industry leader, Sergey Grebnov, in his session at @ThingsExpo, for an educational dive into the world of managing your home, workplace and all the devices they contain with the power of machine-based AI and intelligent Bot services for a completely streamlined experience.

Because IoT devices are deployed in mission-critical environments more than ever before, it’s increasingly imperative they be truly smart. IoT sensors simply stockpiling data isn’t useful. IoT must be artificially and naturally intelligent in order to provide more value
In his session at @ThingsExpo, John Crupi, Vice President and Engineering System Architect at Greenwave Systems, will discuss how IoT artificial intelligence (AI) can be carried out via edge analytics and machine learning techn...

With tough new regulations coming to Europe on data privacy in May 2018, Calligo will explain why in reality the effect is global and transforms how you consider critical data. EU GDPR fundamentally rewrites the rules for cloud, Big Data and IoT. In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Adam Ryan, Vice President and General Manager EMEA at Calligo, will examine the regulations and provide insight on how it affects technology, challenges the established rules and will usher in new levels of diligence a...

Existing Big Data solutions are mainly focused on the discovery and analysis of data. The solutions are scalable and highly available but tedious when swapping in and swapping out occurs in disarray and thrashing takes place. The resolution for thrashing through machine learning algorithms and support nomenclature is through simple techniques. Organizations that have been collecting large customer data are increasingly seeing the need to use the data for swapping in and out and thrashing occurs ...

In the enterprise today, connected IoT devices are everywhere – both inside and outside corporate environments. The need to identify, manage, control and secure a quickly growing web of connections and outside devices is making the already challenging task of security even more important, and onerous. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Rich Boyer, CISO and Chief Architect for Security at NTT i3, discussed new ways of thinking and the approaches needed to address the emerging challenges of security i...

Cloud adoption is often driven by a desire to increase efficiency, boost agility and save money. All too often, however, the reality involves unpredictable cost spikes and lack of oversight due to resource limitations.
In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Joe Kinsella, CTO and Founder of CloudHealth Technologies, tackled the question: “How do you build a fully optimized cloud?” He will examine:
Why TCO is critical to achieving cloud success – and why attendees should be thinking holistically ab...

SYS-CON Events announced today that Datera, that offers a radically new data management architecture, has been named "Exhibitor" of SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo ®, which will take place on Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Datera is transforming the traditional datacenter model through modern cloud simplicity.
The technology industry is at another major inflection point. The rise of mobile, the Internet of Things, data storage and Big...

Blockchain is a shared, secure record of exchange that establishes trust, accountability and transparency across business networks. Supported by the Linux Foundation's open source, open-standards based Hyperledger Project, Blockchain has the potential to improve regulatory compliance, reduce cost as well as advance trade. Are you curious about how Blockchain is built for business? In her session at 21st Cloud Expo, René Bostic, Technical VP of the IBM Cloud Unit in North America, will discuss th...

SYS-CON Events announced today that Datera will exhibit at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Datera offers a radically new approach to data management, where innovative software makes data infrastructure invisible, elastic and able to perform at the highest level. It eliminates hardware lock-in and gives IT organizations the choice to source x86 server nodes, with business model option...

"Cloud computing is certainly changing how people consume storage, how they use it, and what they use it for. It's also making people rethink how they architect their environment," stated Brad Winett, Senior Technologist for DDN Storage, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 20th Cloud Expo, held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.

With 10 simultaneous tracks, keynotes, general sessions and targeted breakout classes, Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo are two of the most important technology events of the year. Since its launch over eight years ago, Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo have presented a rock star faculty as well as showcased hundreds of sponsors and exhibitors! In this blog post, I provide 7 tips on how, as part of our world-class faculty, you can deliver one of the most popular sessions at our events. But before reading the...

SYS-CON Events announced today that CA Technologies has been named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place October 31-November 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. CA Technologies helps customers succeed in a future where every business - from apparel to energy - is being rewritten by software. From planning to development to management to security, CA creates software that fuels transformation for companies in the applic...

Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place October 31 - November 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with 21st Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the most profound change in personal and enterprise IT since the creation of the Worldwide Web more than 20 years ago.
All major researchers estimate there will be tens of billions devic...

In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Carl J. Levine, Senior Technical Evangelist for NS1, will objectively discuss how DNS is used to solve Digital Transformation challenges in large SaaS applications, CDNs, AdTech platforms, and other demanding use cases. Carl J. Levine is the Senior Technical Evangelist for NS1. A veteran of the Internet Infrastructure space, he has over a decade of experience with startups, networking protocols and Internet infrastructure, combined with the unique ability to it...

I recently had the opportunity to give a 10-minute keynote at DataWorks Summit 2017. I know what most of you are thinking: Schmarzo can barely introduce himself in 10 minutes! What sort of keynote could he give in just 10 minutes? And to be honest, I too struggled with what to say.
But after some brainstorming with my marketing experts (Jeff Abbott, Erin Banks, and Chris Hill), we came up with an idea: Pose 5 questions that every organization needs to consider as they prepare themselves for digital transformation. And while I didn’t have enough time in 10 minutes to answer those questions...

In preparation for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance, a global 100 financial services organization embarked on a journey to assess its core information processing environments with the objective of identifying opportunities to strengthen its data privacy protection programs. This article focuses on the technology challenges, approach, and lessons learned for the centralized testing environment.

We all probably remember the movie (“Jurassic Park”), even if we don’t remember this exact scene: Dr. Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum is explaining Chaos Theory to Dr. Ellie Sattler, played by Laura Dern.
Dr. Malcolm is explaining how random, seemingly negligible events can disrupt even the most carefully laid out plans.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: [after the T-Rex failed to appear for the tour group]. “You see a Tyrannosaur doesn’t follow a set pattern or park schedules, the essence of chaos.”

Existing Big Data solutions are mainly focused on the discovery and analysis of data. The solutions are scalable and highly available but tedious when swapping in and swapping out occurs in disarray and thrashing takes place. The resolution for thrashing through machine learning algorithms and support nomenclature is through simple techniques. Organizations that have been collecting large customer data are increasingly seeing the need to use the data for swapping in and out and thrashing occurs in both transaction processing and online analytical processing. Therefore, there is a growing need ...

Increasingly, in a world of compressed times and distances, humans will be the inventors, designers and managers of digital systems and processes, rather than the operators. Operations will be measured in milliseconds, an inhumane speed where only the machines can deliver.
Professor Paul Virilio, a philosopher of speed, urbanist and cultural theorist, wrote at length about the impact of speed on society. He wrote that speed compresses both time and distance. Where once it took a letter 6 months to get to the other side of the world, an email can now arrive in seconds. Today's near real-tim...

In 2016, artificial intelligence (AI) reached its climax. Research and advisory firm Tractica predicted that the annual worldwide AI revenue will grow from $643.7 million in 2016 to $38.8 billion by 2025. The revenue for enterprise AI applications will increase from $358 million in 2016 to $31.2 billion by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 64.3%. Thus, IT and business decision makers must face up to the potentials of AI already today. For each kind of organization this leads to the question, which type of technologies or infrastructure they can leverage to operate an A...

The renowned military strategist John Boyd taught that people and institutions collect favorite philosophies, strategies, theories and ideologies over a period of time, and then try to align the future to fit them. The problem with this is the future is rarely like the past, and trying to fit new data into old paradigms often forces us to perform irrational mental gymnastics, which leaves us farther from the truth.

With 10 simultaneous tracks, keynotes, general sessions and targeted breakout classes, Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo are two of the most important technology events of the year. Since its launch over eight years ago, Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo have presented a rock star faculty as well as showcased hundreds of sponsors and exhibitors! In this blog post, I provide 7 tips on how, as part of our world-class faculty, you can deliver one of the most popular sessions at our events. But before reading these essential tips, please take a moment and watch this brief video from Sandy Carter.

In the cloud era, you as an IT professional are being forced to adopt new roles and take on new responsibilities you may not feel equipped to handle. Businesses are becoming increasingly hybrid, leaving you to manage, secure, monitor, and remediate technology on-premises and in the cloud. Of course, this comes with risks because it means you must manage mission-critical layers of application services across networks, systems, and services you neither own nor control. In fact, in many cases, you may not even have visibility into all the environments you’re responsible to ensure the performance ...

SYS-CON Events announced today that DXWorldExpo has been named “Global Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo, which will take place on Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Digital Transformation is the key issue driving the global enterprise IT business. Digital Transformation is most prominent among Global 2000 enterprises and government institutions.

Having a well-rounded brand strategy helps you identify the marketing channels you must focus on, and defines every aspect of how your business is viewed by your customers.
Marketing and advertising is an integral component of every business. The US Small Business Administration recommends that businesses with do under $5 million in gross sales and whose net profit margin is in the 10-12% should spend at least 7-8% of their gross revenue in marketing and advertising. In other words, if you are doing $100,000 in annual revenue, you should be spending around $8,000 a year in advertising your b...

I have had the opportunity to work for and around a good many start-ups during the course of my career. Often the start-up founders would simply define a problem, develop a solution and launch a company. The marketing department would then do their very best to identify the individuals in each target company that experienced the problem and had a budget to fix it. This was always a challenging task, that has become even harder today.

Deep learning has been very successful in social sciences and specially areas where there is a lot of data. Trading is another field that can be viewed as social science with a lot of data. With the advent of Deep Learning and Big Data technologies for efficient computation, we are finally able to use the same methods in investment management as we would in face recognition or in making chat-bots. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Gaurav Chakravorty, co-founder and Head of Strategy Development at qplum, discussed the transformational impact of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning in maki...

From manual human effort the world is slowly paving its way to a new space where most process are getting replaced with tools and systems to improve efficiency and bring down operational costs. Automation is the next big thing and low code platforms are fueling it in a significant way.
The Automation era is here. We are in the fast pace of replacing manual human efforts with machines and processes. In the world of Information Technology too, we are linking disparate systems, softwares and tools to make things self sustaining. This is called Automation.It has been helping companies overcome t...

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.